Effects of food price shocks on child malnutrition:The Mozambican experience 2008/2009

AbstractA propitiously timed household survey carried out in Mozambique over the period 2008/2009 permits us to study the relationship between shifts in food prices and child nutrition status in a low income setting. We focus on weight-for-height and weight-for-age in different survey quarters characterized by very different food price inflation rates. Using propensity score matching techniques, we find that these nutrition measures, which are sensitive in the short run, improve significantly in the fourth quarter of the survey, when the inflation rate for basic food products is low, compared to the first semester or three quarters, when food price inflation was generally high. The prevalence of underweight, in particular, falls by about 40 percent. We conclude that the best available evidence points to food penury, driven by the food and fuel price crisis combined with a short agricultural production year, as substantially increasing malnutrition amongst under-five children in Mozambique

What is the future potential for imports of combustible municipal waste to countries with extensive district heating hetworks? - A case study of Denmark

In Europe, landfilling is the most widely used method for managing municipal solid waste. By contrast, the northern European waste market is characterized by high capacities from energy recovery plants, mostly incineration in cogeneration facilities. In Denmark, there is an overcapacity of incineration plants and this study aims to analyse if import of waste is beneficial during an interim period to divert landfilling or if it might be profitable to invest in overcapacity in the long-term in those countries where heat from incineration can be recovered. The energy and waste management system are described through linking of mathematical models, taking a holistic approach. In the short-term it pays off to import waste, avoiding landfilling; however, in the longer-term, benefits from waste trading will depend on the price of heat markets

The eye in hand: predicting others' behavior by integrating multiple sources of information

The ability to predict the outcome of other beings' actions confers significant adaptive advantages. Experiments have assessed that human action observation can use multiple information sources, but it is currently unknown how they are integrated and how conflicts between them are resolved. To address this issue, we designed an action observation paradigm requiring the integration of multiple, potentially conflicting sources of evidence about the action target: the actor's gaze direction, hand preshape, and arm trajectory, and their availability and relative uncertainty in time. In two experiments, we analyzed participants' action prediction ability by using eye tracking and behavioral measures. The results show that the information provided by the actor's gaze affected participants' explicit predictions. However, results also show that gaze information was disregarded as soon as information on the actor's hand preshape was available, and this latter information source had widespread effects on participants' prediction ability. Furthermore, as the action unfolded in time, participants relied increasingly more on the arm movement source, showing sensitivity to its increasing informativeness. Therefore, the results suggest that the brain forms a robust estimate of the actor's motor intention by integrating multiple sources of information. However, when informative motor cues such as a preshaped hand with a given grip are available and might help in selecting action targets, people tend to capitalize on such motor cues, thus turning out to be more accurate and fast in inferring the object to be manipulated by the other's hand. </jats:p

Phenotype Expression Variability in Children with GABRB3 Heterozygous Mutations.

GABRB3 gene is a recently identified gene located in 15q12 chromosome and encodes for gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor subunit beta-3 protein, which is linked to the GABAA receptor. The gene is believed to share a role in inhibitory GABAergic synapses, GABA iron-gated channel function, and possible cellular response to histamine. The β3 subunit is expressed in cerebral grey matter, thalami, hippocampi, and cerebellum, among other structures. Faulty GABRB3 function is linked to several neurological disorders and clinical syndromes. However, the spectrum of such disorders is not yet well known. We present three case reports highlighting the potentially expanding clinical phenotype and variable expression in children with mutated GABRB3 gene

Nodulation capacity of Argentinean soybean (Glycine max L. Merr) cultivars inoculated with commercial strains of Bradyrhizobium japonicum.

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the nodulation potential of 31 Argentinean soybean commercial cultivars. Those with the highest nodulation capacity developed twice the amount of nodules than the low nodulating ones, which is the variation contained in soybean genotypes. Furthermore, this was not due to bacterial promiscuity, since the re-sponse was independent of the bradyrhizobia strain inoculated. The ability of cultivars to develop a larger number and biomass of nodules was unrelated with the maturity group they belong to and also was not a response to quorum sensing effects. Our results suggest that breeding programs can be aimed at improving the nodulation capacity of soybean and that cultivars from different maturity groups can be a source of nodulation QTLs